The Dark Ages

Alternatively the Middle Ages (approx. 800 AD - 1500)
A time of “intellectual darkness”
Feudal societies resign many citizens to the uneducated peasantry
Artistic and cultural developments of Antiquity perceived to have halted
Emphasis on logic and reason gives way to increased reliance on dogmatic systems of belief
- Church of England
- Superstitions or folk beliefs
Also historically associated with violence, depravity

“Gothic” becomes a bad word

The Renaissance

16th and 17th century Europe
A “rediscovery” of the cultural developments of Classical Antiquity
Gradual educational reform
Science and art beings to flourish (Da Vinci, Descartes, Michelangelo, Galileo)
Polymaths: interdisciplinary knowledge
Big developments in these areas begins to shake the foundations of dogmatic believes

18th and 19th centuries
Science takes off at tan unprecedented rate
Reason, logic and rationalism become the main tickets to knowledge
Triggered by major social shifts, e.g. French Revolution
Development of industry and the modern city (civilisation “as we know it”)
Growth of a secular society. Move away from religious dominance as science becomes the main foundation of knowledge
Superstition and folk beliefs superseded by scientific advancement
Old myths of the paths are dispelled
Neoclassicism

Gothic	Enlightenment
Dark Ages	Greco-Roman Antiquity
Barbarism	Civility
Medievalism	Classicism
Superstition	Reason
Oppressive institutions - Church, Aristocracy	Enlightened institutions - scientific advancements
Catholicism/Scholasticism	Scientific progress
Old/dated	Modern
The past	The past

As a genre, Gothic literature aims to confront its readers will all of these uncivilised, fearful and “old” things that bubble away beneath society’s mask of modern civility
Part of its aim is to remind us of the inevitable “dark side” that remains despite human progress

English authors in mid 1700s
- Horace Walpole
- Ann Radcliffe
- Mary Shelley
Novels interested in hauntings, the supernatural, etc
Counters the Enlightenment obsession with “progress” etc, via stories that fixate on the past
- Ancestral curses
- Ancient secrets discovered
- Things coming back to haunt people
Old castles, monasteries, etc, as settings
- Emphasises the decay of major social institutions

Mid to late 1800s
Genre begins to wane in mainstream popularity
Interested in human psychology
- New discoveries about the mind, mental illness, etc
- Acknowledgement of the fact that the mind is volatile, suscpptible to madness
- Characters with split identities, prone to violence, etc
Gritty urban settings reflect the transition to city life
- Poverty, disease, corruption etc
- Victorian London is a popular setting
Edgar Allen Poe
Robert Louis Stevenson
- The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Pathetic fallacy
- When a character’s feelings are projected onto the setting around them
Byronic Hero
The pursued protagonist
Haunted settings
Unreliable narrators
Doppelgängers and gothic doubling
Supernatural or spectral motifs
The “virginal maiden”/Gothic heroine

Uncanny atmosphere
Unreliable narrators
“Outsider” characters
- Characters given to violence or irrational actions
- Madness; mad scientist, the psychopath or wildly unpredictable person
Unsettling settings
- Night-time
- Haunted locations
Natural imagery of sublime landscape
Things beyond human comprehension
- The supernatural
Death, decay, disintegration (in both characters and settings)
Religious imagery and settings
- Aesthetically gives an austere, solemn and powerful atmosphere
- Also reminds us of a supernatural realm beyond rational human comprehension
- E.g. Crumbling church, graveyard
Animals
- Bad omens; link to superstition and the supernatural
- Often used for foreshadowing or symbolic purpose
- e.g. Werewolf, black cat, raven
Pathetic fallacy
- Weather reflects emotions of the characters/the action of the plot
- e.g. Storms, rain